WAKE UP CALL


I can't compose today. I feel too upset and actually disturbed about the unfolding events in Ghana and the rest of Africa, which was the main item on the BBC World Service news on Saturday. It's heightened by the fact I used to live there. Global warming is coming home, to stay. My friends and I *all* knew this was going to happen as long ago as 1987. Some dolphin crisis (as I remember) brought the Environment to the attention of the wider public and the Greens got 15% in the next UK European election.

Books were published. Artists caught on: "India under water, Africa - walking, What a scene of confusion, and the seas rising" - Julian Cope, Give Me Back My Flag, 1992. Climate change was in the new National Curriculum in 1992. And the kids sent their paper leaves with their thoughts on to the Rio Earth Summit. Hopes were high.

I kept saying over and over that the impending crisis ought to be on all the front pages and in all TV News bulletins every day. Of course, the media let us down, and they are still doing so. What's on CNN today? Interest rates and, just like in 1995, O.J. fucking Simpson! They haven't even run the Africa story yet; probably because the journalists can't or won't get into the disaster zones to take pictures.

Most Ghanaians are deeply religious, open-hearted, resilient people. It's another "land of smiles". Against all the odds, they persevere in their steady faith and optimism. And they have an engaging sense of humour and of the absurd: they know the odds are stacked against them. And now the fields lie flooded, and hundreds of thousands are displaced, their rickety mud and straw huts washed away. The outlook is bleaker - food shortages because of the drowned crops; increased occurrence of malaria; cholera; even locusts, to make it truly Biblical. (To echo John Humphrys, where was God?)

BBC NEWS: Africans' responses

We all let them down. But most of all, the politicians, who should have known much better, let them down. For twenty years they have soldiered on in the vain pursuit of economic growth at all costs - full steam ahead. And if that were not enough, they planned wars to guarantee that precious oil supply, which unsettled the whole Middle East. Ignoring the Environment and huge disparities of wealth, they are directly to blame for the "Terror" we hear so much about now. How different things might have been if they had thought to invest heavily in renewable energy in the 90s, or bring in "carbon credits", which I first heard about around the same time. Apart from Prince Charles, Al Gore's was the only prominent voice I heard promoting green issues, but even he did little at Kyoto and was strangely silent about the Big E during his Presidential bid in 2000, splitting the Green vote, and consequently losing California. And we all know what happened next. Cheers for the great movie, Al - I've almost forgiven you.

In December, these politicians are assembling for yet another expenses-paid international talking shop. This time they had better act and bring in some of those mythical "tough targets". Because if we fail to keep the temperature increase below 2 degrees, all Hell will break loose. Not just for the poor Africans, either - the security implications will threaten everyone's comfortable lifestyle.

We have a global village, and the internet is amazing. People in huge numbers support Green issues. And - shock! - would vote for them. I have that much faith left in people. And there's no dearth of ideas. People in the public eye only need to speak up. Imagine if we had a Green alternative to vote for, for example. How hard would it be for Brown, Cameron or any of those Presidential hopefuls to cobble that together? And CNN - How hard would it be to follow the BBC World Service's lead and "front" (or just run) the story, the one which is the underlying and compelling narrative of our times?